Tag: school choice

“This is absolutely criminal to deprive our children of the education they deserve,” he continued. “The extra tax money that they passed in prop 30 it’s not going into the classroom; it’s going to administrators and pensions. We need to get that money into the classroom and we need to give our children and our parents the education they deserve and that includes building more charters and giving parents choice and encouraging homeschooling.”

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told radio show host Hugh Hewitt that Congress must address mental health issues in schools in order to prevent another deadly mass shooting like the one in Florida on Wednesday.

Homeschoolers in the United States are debating whether an amendment to the GOP tax reform bill that would expand 529 College Savings Plans to allow use of tax-exempt funds to pay for homeschooling expenses will put homeschoolers at risk of federal oversight.

Last month was National Dropout Prevention Month. The media has been eagerly reporting that high school graduation rates have reached a record high, though “incomplete or fuzzy” district data makes such claims questionable.

A Politico report states education secretary Betsy DeVos blames the Trump transition team for her confirmation process difficulties that overshadowed the fact she had been recommended for her post by both Jeb Bush and Mike Pence.

The American Freedom Alliance hosted “From Gold to Dust: The Destruction of California,” over the weekend that featured an all-star lineup of conservative experts outlining why the California dream has been evaporating and how to bring it back.

U.S. Education Department Secretary Betsy DeVos says she regrets that she did not more vehemently condemn racism in the country when dealing with issues concerning the nation’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

The president of the nation’s largest labor union says she is refusing to work with President Donald Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos because she does not trust their motives and cannot assume they will do what is best for children and families.

Using #Questions4Betsy, some on the left mocked U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Twitter leading up to her testimony Tuesday before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee regarding the Trump administration’s proposed education budget for 2018.

During Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s appearance before a House subcommittee last week, Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) may have thought her question to DeVos would demonstrate her commitment to LGBT students in schools, but what it really did was highlight why school choice should never be a federal program in the states.

The standstill on Texas school choice funding and public school financing came to a head in Austin late Wednesday when House Education Committee Chair Dan Huberty (R-Kingwood) made good on his promise to kill school choice, also knocking off public school financing since both were packed into the same piece of legislation, House Bill 21.

Progressives who would have even more federal tax dollars spent on education are condemning President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 education budget, which cuts $9.2 billion from the U.S. Department of Education – a 13.6 percent reduction from last year.

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made clear Monday that while the decision to provide school choice belongs to the states, those who opt not to provide choices would be making “a terrible mistake.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case that could erase Blaine amendments from the school choice debate once and for all. Teachers unions, who have used Blaine amendments as their bread-and-butter argument in dozens of cases, have a legitimate fear this ruling will spell doom for their failed system.

The NAACP, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Florida Education Association and other leftist groups are stirring protest against the president of Bethune-Cookman University for his invitation to U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to be the school’s commencement speaker Wednesday.

The Florida chapter of the NAACP is calling on U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to decline an invitation to give the commencement address at Bethune-Cookman University (B-CU), a private historically black university in Daytona Beach.

President Donald Trump made the end of Common Core and the return to local control of education the primary items of his campaign’s education agenda, but the woman leading his education department claims Common Core has not existed in the country’s schools since 2015.

In a brief press release posted on the U.S. Department of Education’s website, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said she has accepted an invitation from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten to visit a public school in Van Wert, Ohio.

The Texas Senate passed school choice legislation, Senate Bill 3, that would establish education savings accounts and tax credit scholarship programs intended to expand K-12 options for children. The bill crossed the finish line in a final vote of 18-13 on Thursday with a few notable changes.

A panel of education policy experts agree the Trump administration appears to be moving toward some form of federal management of school choice, but warns that attempts to influence school choice policy from Washington, D.C. could undermine the president’s stated goals of returning education decisions back to the states and local governments.

While President Donald Trump called upon Congress this week to pass education legislation that funds school choice for low-income students nationwide, Texas House Education Committee Chairman Representative Dan Huberty (R-Kingwood) struck a blow to school choice, declaring it a “dead” issue in the state’s current legislative session.

A pastor and his wife have been arrested in Cuba for homeschooling their children, according to Mike Donnelly, director of global outreach for the Home School Legal Defense Association, a U.S.-based organization that has offered legal assistance to homeschooling families since 1983.